Online Inquiry Management

Does your practice consistently bring in potential patients through your website? What percentage of these leads are actually converted into clients? If you think that there is room for improvement in this area, maybe your practice should consider implementing a database-driven software program to help augment this conversion percentage.

Page 1 Solutions offers a client relationship management capability called ‘virtual counselor’ that automatically tracks and manages incoming email inquiries generated by the website. The system helps your practice’s staff monitor inquiries, automatically sends customized responses and follow-up reminders, and provides a prospect database capability to ensure valuable inquiries are properly managed to avoid ‘losing prospects’ through inactivity or omission.

There are several key elements to this system. Because it is a database driven program, there is virtually no data entry to do. When a prospective patient enters their information on your website contact form, the information automatically flows into a database. Virtual counselor will automatically send a series of customized emails to the prospect. The emails are spread out over time, to gently remind the prospect to contact you. They are customizable so they can be sent out at any interval. It is important to ‘strike while the iron is hot’, so over a six week time, it would make sense to send the first one out within three days of receipt of an inquiry. The next email would go out at exactly two weeks after the initial contact, then four weeks after the initial contact and lastly six weeks after the initial contact.

The dynamic database interface allows for a surgeon (or office staff) to log in and edit information. For example, a person contacts the office. Virtual Counselor follows up with them, and they call for a consultation. An appointment is set. At this point, no further email follow-up is necessary. So, the surgeon (or office staff) can log in and change the settings for the individual so they do not receive any more follow up emails. This is a management system, which not only allows for database information building, but also acts as a wonderful tool to recruit and retain prospects.

If automated client management software makes sense for your practice, contact Page 1 Solutions to find out more, we’ll help you get real results from your web marketing.

I Tried Search Engine Optimization and It Didn't Work....

If you are frustrated by the search engine optimization process, don't be. It is a process and it takes time and consistent effort. Your practice can have one of the dominant LASIK websites on the search engines in your market if you invest the time - or hire a website marketing firm with the necessary expertise and resources - to make a consistent effort over time to get the results you want.

For starters, make sure that you have optimized every page of your website for a narrow list of search phrases. We recommend focusing on your city and state on each page. In other words the search phrase you use for each page should include your city and/or your state (e.g., Denver LASIK Surgeon, Colorado LASIK Surgeon). The process of optimizing each page of your website tells the search engines how to index each page. It does not tell the search engines how to rank each page, but it does tell them what each page is about.

How do you optimize each page? That’s a great question. Start by making sure the caption for the page clearly identifies the subject of the page. In other words, if the page is about Glaucoma Management, make sure that is in the caption. In fact, you should also include the location of the practice – Denver, Colorado in the caption or sub caption if you can. It will help. Next, make sure these keywords and search phrases are also included in the body text and in the meta tags. For the meta tags, the most important one is the title tag. If these all have the search phrase in them, the search engines will know what the page is about.

The next part of search engine optimization is the hard part. You have to make sure that the search engines see your whole site as a credible resource. This means you have to have lots of links pointing into your LASIK website. This takes time. Register your site on as many directories as you can. Exchange links to a limited extent - but only with related sites. Finally, encourage other websites to link to you by making sure you have constantly updated relevant content. If you can become THE resource for your area of practice in your market area, more sites will link to you and the search engines will rank your pages higher when they index your site.

So, don't say it didn't work. Search Engine Optimization for LASIK practices is hard work, especially when you are competing with lots of other surgeons and practices’ who want to be on top of the search engines too. You have to keep at it. It will and does work. It just takes time.

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions

Domain Renewal Commitment - An Easy Google Brownie Point

Recently, Google filed a patent to protect the search engine's technology. As patents are public record, this technology was finally unveiled to the search engine community. We learned a few valuable pieces of information about the inner workings of this search engine giant. One piece was somewhat surprising.

In United States Patent Application 20050071741, Google made apparent its efforts to wipe out search engine spam, stating:

“Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith."

What does this mean? Essentially, Google and other search engines use the length of time that you have your domain renewed for as a measure of your website's longevity and credibility. Search engines are constantly bombarded by fly-by-night websites of little or no significance. These nuisance websites (regarded as search engine spam by Google) typically have domain names that are registered for only one year.

You can send a clear message to Google and other search engines by simply renewing your domain name for a longer period of time. Since the Google patent release, Page 1 Solutions recommends domain renewals of two or more years. I typically recommend a five-year domain renewal period. This gives you an impressive domain expiration date and ensures that when the nuisance sites begin renewing their domains for 2 years instead of 1 (which is almost guaranteed), your site will still stand above the rest.

Jonathan Fashbaugh
Page 1 Solutions